Xris wrote:Sorry but your reply is pure rhetoric.I have introduced real argument, all you are doing is attacking me.
If I have attacked you, report my post for ad hominem.
The rest is absurd. The last purported argument you introduced was that plasma cosmological theory was more accurate an explanation of the universe's behavior than big bang cosmological theory because the latter might have made some false predictions, and I responded by bringing an explanation of how at least one of plasma cosmological theory's central predictions was demonstrably false. There has yet been no counter-argument. The rest of your contribution has been a series of
questioning scientists' motives,
stating your opinions as though they are arguments in themselves,
making empirical claims without either explaining them or providing evidence to back them up, and
concluding that because you find the whole business of modern physics confusing and incomplete, it therefore must all be the false product of lies and dogma (which is a fallacy - the argument from ignorance/personal incredulity). I've color-coded instances of these in the rest of your post below.
Argument implies explanation, or a logical connection between thesis, supporting evidence, and conclusion. You have asked questions and you have stated your conclusions, but you haven't provided any explanations.
The evidence is questionable and their conclusions are even more so. These concepts are not consistent as you claim.
These concepts are a chain of self supporting assumptions that would completely collapse if just one was seriously questioned. I notice that as soon as I make this argument particular you fail to respond, only to return later with a simple argument stating, I am simply wrong. You need to construct an argument against my opinions not simply disagree. These experiments are not independent. They are not looking for the truth, they are seeking confirmation of their concepts. Did they ever doubt this god particle exist, while spending 80 billion dollars? Do you ever hear the BB proponents seek a different conclusion for their observations? Do you ever hear particle physicists, when confronted with the impossible quandary the theory of light produces, try developing an alternative theory to photons? From the concept of particle we have developed the theory that the universe was created from nothing and that a god particle just happened to occur at exactly the same time to create matter. How much illogical nonsense are you going to accept as gospel? It constantly amazes me how much we assume science can be trusted. How it has become the unquestionable faith that we dare not confront. I am a self confessed infidel and I will continue to argue against any dogmatic faith.
Let me inform you that it these concepts are not empirically proven nor do they apply the laws of science that are empirically proven.They are simply theories born from misconceived concepts trying to understand observations.
Okay, let me try it this way. Could you please, Xris, list in the form of individual sentences each item you're calling "illogical nonsense" or "self-supporting assumptions"? If you can identify each thing with which you have a problem, I will see if I can address them, but I will need you to be specific. It would also be extremely helpful if you could explain how/why the evidence supporting each item is unsatisfactory (i.e. provide an explanation of where and how the evidence/argument goes wrong, like I did with plasma cosmology and the electromagnetic force).
Asking questions is excellent, yes, but just asking the question does not collapse the argument, as you claim. If the question can be answered reasonably, the argument stands. Likewise, simply ignoring or dismissing the answer also doesn't collapse the argument; you have to actually show how the answer is insufficient. This is much more difficult than just phrasing one's opinions as skeptical questions, and I apologize accordingly for the inconvenience. As a show of good faith, though, I'll get the ball rolling by trying to answer one of your questions right now.
As far as I can tell, you categorize dark matter as one of these self-supporting assumptions
because it, as a concept, was studied and/or proposed as a theoretical construct after observational data did not conform to big bang theoretical predictions. In short, big bang theory would not make sense without dark matter.
So far, I can follow that. A guiding theory (or paradigm, in the language of Kuhn) gives a foothold from which scientists can ground their observations and look for holes in or implications of their understanding of whatever is being studied, and that necessarily leads to theoretical constructs being at least somewhat dependent on current understanding. Not being an astrophysicist, there'll probably be gaps and simplifications in my explanation, but I'll see if a layman's grasp can't address this.
A central point here is that both big bang theory and dark matter depend upon our understanding of gravity since Einstein because the math of relativity is in large part how we test hypotheses about the cosmos; in other words, because we can't directly manipulate the universe as in a normal experiment, we have to use observation (telescopes, radios, spectrometers, etc.) and theory (predictions based on einsteinian and quantum gravity theories) to test our ideas.
1) Modern Physics is said to be the best-founded science because the predictions it makes about the behavior of matter are observed accurate to a degree far right of the decimal point. Given that these predictions are made using the math of einsteinian and now quantum gravity, it logically follows that these two theories are our best attempts at describing external reality's constitution and behavior so far.
2) Based on all of our conversation so far, it seems like your problem with the big bang theory is not with the big bang itself but with the fact it relies on these understandings of light and gravity, which is where you actually find fault. Big bang cosmology uses the math and predictions of these theories to frame its questions and explanations. For instance, what we know about gravity, space, and light from Einstein and others tell us some specific things we should expect to observe (say, about redshift, timeframes, and the positions of material bodies in space) - and, like it or not, many of those predicted circumstances are indeed observed. These kinds of confirmations serve as evidence for the big bang theory of the development of the universe, and necessarily as further confirmation of the gravity theories upon which it's based.
3) But that does come with caveats, like the predicted amount of matter in the universe necessary to explain the conditions of gravitational attraction observed far outnumbering the amount of actual matter observed. Given this mismatch between prediction and observation, the concept of dark matter was proposed to make sense of the disparity. The existence of a great deal of invisible-to-us matter in the universe would explain both the gravitational behavior of visible matter and also why we haven't directly observed this "dark" matter. Incidentally, it is called "dark" matter because for whatever reasons (there are some given, but I can't remember them or explain them if I could) we can't see it, which just means we are not receiving visible light reflected from it - hence "dark."
4) That, rather than the immediate wholesale abandonment of the basic theories and a start over from scratch. Considering your position that any theoretical constructs proposed to explain this disparity are untrue (a logical fallacy), I surmise that the above would be your preferred course of action by leading physicists. The fallacy is in arguing that, because this entity was proposed post hoc to explain some observation, it is therefore false. Granted, proposing some explanation post hoc would be a fallacy itself on the scientists' part, but that does not necessarily make the explanation false. The reason for both is that it is perfectly possible that, by sheer chance alone, their explanation hit upon a truth. Fortunately - and you need to understand this - we don't have to consider their explanation a post hoc concept and therefore as a lucky hit if true or an unscrupulous lie if false.
5) Because of the overwhelming 'correctness' of the basic light and gravitational theories' predictions in so many other areas during the last century, we have strong statistical and inductive reason to believe they are true theories or very close to true theories. This helps us by giving us theoretic grounds for proposing and testing new ideas. It is statistically likely that a theoretical construct that uses the math of these well-supported theories to solve a mismatch between prediction and observation is more probably true, compared to a theoretical construct that demands that these well-supported theories themselves are false. So rather than being a post hoc rationalization, a theoretical construct like dark matter that is consistent with the theoretical body from which it grew, and that is amenable to hypothesis generation and testing, is a reasonable scientific move. And indeed this happens all the time, in all scientific disciplines. New theoretical constructs are proposed based on, and to help explain, other ones whose full details are as yet incomplete. Particle physics and the Higgs boson; natural selection, Mendelian genetics and the structure of DNA; gravity and dark matter.
Now certainly this statistical argument itself does not prove truth - no statistical argument can: even if there's a 99.9% chance that X is true, it's still possible that the 0.1% Y is actually true. But such an argument gives us reasonable justification for pursuing the more-likely explanation rather than the less-likely.
I hope my explanation was understandable. Because I know very little about particle physics and cosmology, I worry that I am not going to provide you the best understanding. You would be far better served by reading the works of active scientists in these areas rather than an ignorant kid like me. In fact I am very curious as to what scientific literature in the relevant fields you do read in order to generate your understanding such as it is. In this thread or another, I've already shared the means by which I come to my (limited) knowledge of these kinds of things. Care to reciprocate?
- By Bethel Saint Bright
- By Sy Borg